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By P.K.Balachandran/Sunday Observer
Colombo, October 13: Thousands of people assemble at Deekshabhoomi in Nagpur in the Western Indian State of Maharashtra on October 14 every year to pay homage to Dr.B.R.Ambedkar (1891-1956), the iconic leader of the Dalits, India’s most depressed caste.
The Dalits were considered untouchable before untouchability was abolished and made punishable in 1950 after India’s independence.
Dr.Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar, along with 800,000 other Dalits, converted to Buddhism on October 14, 1956 in a mass conversion ceremony not seen before or after in India. Ambedkar belonged to the Mahar caste, a Dalit community considered “untouchable” in traditional Hindu society. Hindu society was divided into four “touchable” castes – namely, the Brahmin (priestly class), Kshatriya (warrior class), Vaishya (Traders), Shudra (manual workers and artisans). Beyond the pale of the four touchable castes were the “untouchables” known then as the Panchamas and now as Dalits or Scheduled Castes.
The caste system was based on the concept of “purity” and “pollution” in which the castes were graded on the basis of purity and pollution, with some castes and their traditional occupations deemed pure, and others, polluting. A person may not be practicing his polluting traditional occupation, but still he would be deemed polluting because of his birth in a polluting caste. Caste also determined who one could marry or eat with or accept cooked food from.
Because of the immutability of the caste order, persons of the untouchable castes remained untouchable and were denied means of social (and also economic) mobility.
Unlike most fellow Mahars, Ambedkar had access to education because his father was in the British Indian army. And being an exceptionally bright student he could go to the West for his post-graduate and doctoral degrees. Yet, back home in India, he was subjected to discrimination. But unlike other educated Dalits, Ambedkar fought against the caste system relentlessly.
Ambedkar did not believe in the integration of the Dalits into the caste system or even being given a higher status in the caste system. He believed in total liberation from the caste system as he was convinced that Hindu caste system was cast in stone and that its values were deeply ingrained in the Hindu mind.
He therefore advocated the conversion of Dalits to another religion where the value system was not based on purity and pollution and the social hierarchy was not immutable. He pondered over Christianity, Islam, Sikhism and Buddhism and finally chose Buddhism because of the Buddha’s rejection of caste and his advocacy of rationality. Ambedkar felt that this was best suited his community in the modern era (see: Valerian Rodrigues’ book: The Essential Readings of Dr. B.R.Ambedkar (OUP, New Delhi 2002).
According to Ambedkar the Buddha found the Vedic mantras (incantations) “not morally elevating” and felt that the Vedas were “worthless as a desert.” The Vedic Rishis’ theories were “mere speculations not based on logic or fact” and that they “created no social values,” Buddha said.
But the Buddha appreciated the theories of the sage Kapila who said that reality must rest on proof and that thinking must be based on rationalism. Kapila also said that there was no logical or factual basis for the presumption that God existed or that he created the universe.
In Hindu theology, the “Brahmanas” come next to the Vedas. The Brahmanas tout the theory that the performance of Vedic rituals or sacrifices were the way to escape the cycle of birth and death. They also prescribed the caste system, which was but an order meant to establish the supremacy of Brahmins and the subjugation of the untouchables.
On the contrary, the Buddha rejected the caste order as well as the value of sacrifices, especially animal sacrifice. The caste hierarchy only bred contempt of the higher for the lower and hatred of the lower for the higher. The Buddha desired a system that promoted equality and harmony.
The Upanishads were opposed to the ideas of the Veda and the Brahmanas, but the Upanishads also promoted the idea of the Brahman and Atman which the Buddha rejected. Brahman is the divine essence of the universe, while Atman is the essence that lives in all matter such as humans, animals, and nature. The Buddha could find no proof that Brahman was a reality.
After concluding that conversion was needed, Ambedkar chose communal conversion over individual conversion for a sociological reason. He believed that to be meaningful and satisfying, conversion had to be a group or societal affair. Its goal should be social or communal liberation and not individual liberation. He desired the liberation of the entire community of Scheduled Castes/Dalits. He wanted all of them to opt out of the caste system so that the entire community gained and existed autonomously outside the caste system. Individual conversion would only lead to isolation and weakening.
Conversion had to be meaningful and not motivated by just one or two considerations, Ambedkar felt. In the past, when mass conversions took place from one religion to another, these were often due to the conversion of the ruler or king and the people blindly followed. But Ambedkar did not consider this kind of conversion heartfelt and meaningful. Conversion had to have a social dimension, to be meaningful.
He also disapproved of individuals converting for specific gains, such as education or economic or political advancement or even simply to survive in a hostile environment. Such conversions could not bring about true change or the desired social change.
Ambedkar made a distinction between religion and theology. Religion for him was a set of usages, practices, observances, rites, rituals, social norms and taboos. Theology was the rationalization or justification of these practices. For Aambedkar, the Hindu “religion” comprised rituals and practices that included caste discrimination.
To Ambedkar, religion was not a supernatural phenomenon but a hard social fact firmly rooted in a social setting. Religion became necessary to maintain social order like the government and the law he felt.
Given the centrality of religion in the scheme of things, the untouchables would have to choose a religion in which they have equality and also a collective consciousness, Ambedkar felt. That is why he wanted the Dalits to choose Buddhism which denied caste and rejected a God-ordered and immutable social system of inequality.
To the question whether the Untouchables would gain economically or politically if they converted to Buddhism, Ambedkar’s answer was in the negative. But he felt that converting wholesale and forming a united self-conscious Buddhist community outside the Hindu social order would give the untouchables the much-needed collective confidence and a sense of collective power.
In the conversion ceremony in 1956, Ambedkar and the Dalits took 22 oaths. Among them were the following: “ I shall not act in a manner violating the principles and teachings of the Buddha; allow any ceremonies to be performed by Brahmins; I shall believe in the equality of man; endeavour to establish equality; follow the ‘noble eightfold path’ of the Buddha; follow the ‘paramithas’ prescribed by the Buddha; have compassion and loving-kindness for all living beings and protect them; shall endeavour to follow the noble eightfold path and practise compassion and loving-kindness in everyday life. “
And finally: “I renounce Hinduism which is harmful to humanity and impedes the advancement and development of humanity because it is based on inequality, and adopt Buddhism as my religion. I firmly believe in the Dhamma of the Buddha as the only true religion.”
Government’s data show that the number of Scheduled Caste Buddhists was 5.9 million in 2011 while the overall Scheduled Caste population was 201 million.
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